Man’s Need to Learn

What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? In this rhetorical manner Tertullian raised the question of the relation of philosophy to revelation. The answer, of course, is Much, every way. Athens and Jerusalem were both places of human habitation and thus centers of commerce, education, political activity, religious inquiry, crime and other forms of evil. The human enterprise in its astonishing variety is recognizably occupied with distinctively human concerns, wherever it spreads. Men struggle with the physical environment, with problems arising out of their instinctual natures, with issues created by their societal interrelatedness, with questions of meaning and value.

To be human is to be a part of this matrix of earth, time, family, and generation. This is the “given” that is each person’s unearned heritage as homo sapiens. Each of us is brother to every son of Adam. Each plays a role in the continuing story of mankind.

As human beings we are inevitably items in the catalogue of nature. The earth is our mother, the beasts our rivals for her attention and benevolence. But according to Scripture our relation to earth is far more significant than that of merely tenants and dependents. To man was given custody of land and sea, flora and fauna; he was to preserve and protect all living things upon the face of the earth. Stewardship of this scope forced upon man the serious study of the world which supports him and for which he is responsible.

In the pursuit of this kind of knowledge there emerged the sciences needed for the development of human societies. Tools were invented, cities built, and art created. Human life took on secular character. The urgency of mundane matters could not be ignored except in despair of life. Food, shelter, the security of property, the safety of the community, were considerations of immediate importance to every person in the social complex. In the midst of grappling with these persistent problems, man turned his attention to the big questions of existence.

This history of man as a secular being is the essential curriculum for every man who seeks to understand his life in the world. No facet of the human career, so far as it is known from the beginning, is unimportant or irrelevant data for any thoughtful person. Everything that has been learned about the earth, about the forms of life on earth, about man’s being and relationships, about the events that have marked the flow of time, is the object of our eager investigation as cognitive creatures.

Because we are intelligent beings we are driven to examine the world, to pry into its secrets and to explore the record of our own past. Intelligence requires this cerebral effort. The spirit of learning is integral to the highest and noblest impulses of human nature. As Aristotle maintained in his Metaphysics, “all men by nature desire to know.”

The point I am suggesting is that the need to learn inheres in the being of man as man. And that the effort to satisfy that need by energetic and disciplined study of all available data is man’s most exalted work. The man who preaches is first of all a man, living under the conditions of existence that support and limit all men, sharing in the human fraternity. He experiences hunger, fear, solitude, and the flight of time in common with his fellow men. The quality of this temporal existence and the dynamics of its emotions and moods are inevitably concerns of keen interest to every reflective mind. Only the mentally incompetent are exempt from the necessity of examining life and the world in time.

It is well known to students of the Old Testament that ancient Hebrew thought celebrated earthly life. The full-bodied joys of robust human experience were to be neither renounced nor regretted. Earth was fair, life was good. From this perspective the Wisdom literature surveys the whole of human life and seeks to assign appropriate value to its varied aspects. This comprehensive perspective commends Hebrew thought to the attention of scholars committed to the service of mankind. Mankind must be the subject of our resolute study.

This mandate to inquire into the character of human existence in all its dimensions is implicit in the function of the Church as herald of the Word. Not only is it essential to know the message to be proclaimed; it is also vital to know the nature of the creature to whom the proclamation is directed. Jesus knew what was in man, the Gospels tell us. His insight into the human heart gave sharp impact and continuing liveliness to his words. It is of more than passing interest to note that most of our Lord’s teaching developed out of confrontation with specific issues and problems through which he saw the reflection of man’s perennial inquietude and malaise. Knowing men, he was competent to prescribe for mankind.

Alexander Pope, often ridiculed by preachers for his counsel “the proper study of mankind is man,” was nevertheless right. This need not and ought not to be the only course in the curriculum of life, but it is an indispensable one. Men have insistent, critical needs. It is monstrous to preach even such incredibly good news as the Gospel in ways that do not appear to speak with power and grace to man’s needs. To this extent, at least, we can appreciate the force of Tillich’s method of correlation: the deep questions of existence are answered in the affirmations of revelation. It is helpful to know what the questions are before we rush to supply the answers!

In our lifetime the wrong kind of stress has been placed, in evangelical circles, on the simplicity of the Gospel. This emphasis has been construed as a beatitude on the simple-minded. Does not Isaiah speak of a highway so well marked that even “fools shall not err therein” (35:8)? What need is there for learning if salvation is available on terms so elementary that even a child can easily understand them? Does not even the Apostle Paul warn against the wisdom of this world and contrast it with the far stronger “foolishness of God” (1 Cor. 1:19–25)?

There is undeniably an important truth in this thicket of wrong-headed questions. Intellectual pride has spawned a dreadful progeny of impotent and disastrous programs aimed at improving man’s estate. The presumption that human genius needs no assistance from divine providence in managing the affairs of earth has lifted the lid on a Pandora’s box of evils that engulf mankind and continue to proliferate. Man by wisdom discovers neither himself, nor God, nor redemption.

But this sobering acknowledgment does not constitute the sanctification of ignorance. Man is the creature whom God addresses. That address is apprehended by the mind and spirit. Revelation is possible only because there is an intelligent and sensitive being to receive it. Furthermore, the character of that revelation, in all its ramifications, requires the full use of man’s mental powers to mature insight and understanding. New light is continually breaking forth from God’s Word, but it is no mystery that it shines only in studious and thoughtful minds.

Therefore let us celebrate the intellect as a splendid endowment of the Creator enabling us to order our lives by the light of knowledge and truth. John Calvin scolded those who were so depressed by the depravity of human nature that they supposed man incapable of discerning the truth apart from regeneration. Calvin observed that the desire to know truth is characteristic of all men: “human understanding then possesses some power of perception since it is by nature captivated by love of truth” (Institutes, Bk. II, Ch. II, 13). He praised secular learning—Calvin once aspired to be a humanist scholar after the pattern of Erasmus—and ascribed all truth discovered in every field of investigation to one divine source. He writes,

Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God [ibid., Bk. II, Ch. II, 15].

Reason and understanding are a part of man’s natural equipment, thanks to a benevolent Providence. For this great benefaction we should be profoundly grateful. Calvin speaks wryly to this point when he says, “The Creator of nature himself abundantly arouses this gratitude in us when he creates imbeciles (ibid., Bk. II, Ch. II, 14). In Rupert Brooke’s memorable phrase, there is a “glory of the lighted mind.”

The Travelers Meet

Emmaus lies a short day’s walk away

for those who make the journey over space.

But half a lifetime past before my face

with war and unbelief in full display

make journeying through time a wider bay

than Chesapeake to separate the pace

of marching duty from joy’s dancing grace

dustless through Friday night and Saturday.

After the Crucifixion what is planned?

If I seek not the living with the dead,

where shall I seek him? If he does not stand

or show his hands, his side, his thorn-cut head,

shall I find him?

Stay, friend. Be welcomed, and

discovered in the breaking of the bread.

TERENCE Y. MULLINS

Philosopher Etienne Gilson sees a divine immanence in this human capacity to learn. He contends that “every effort of reason to know the truth attests God’s presence in us and may hence be rightly considered as on an equality with prayer.… If God is present in us through our intelligence, the purest form of worship we can offer him is the worship of truth” (Essays on Maimonides, p. 30). The exercise of the intellect in a life-long pursuit of knowledge and wisdom is the vocation of the genuinely pious person. God the Ultimate Truth is honored in our finite endeavors to find answers to the stubborn questions of existence.

If we turn our attention away from metaphysical reflections and look at the contemporary Church in its social context, we are impressed again with the need for Christians to rediscover their intellectual calling. This urgency presses upon us from two directions.

From one standpoint the Church is confronted by a popular pragmatism that is apathetic toward the question of truth. Relativism has won the day with a considerable segment of society, replacing the search for truth with techniques of adjustment to the convolutions of the modern world. To ask about reality is to play a meaningless game with words. What is real is now, Viet Nam, taxes, and take-home wages. How can I live in the world as presently shaped without coming apart at the seams?

The how questions always replace the what and why questions in a technology-oriented society. Success, profit, and comfort are key words in its vocabulary.

Ominous signs abound that this kind of secular mentality has invaded the Church, encountering only feeble resistance. Doctrinal and theological issues are peripheral matters for most church members—and clergy. What is important in the local church and denominational headquarters is the success of the institution—numerical growth, fiscal prosperity, plant expansion. That all this can occur in the absence of didache and with only an occasional nod at kerygma is a clear symptom of malignancy. The Church cannot live for long on such worldly resources.

People may act in accord with values and ideals inherited for a time, even when they have lost faith in them, or understanding of them, as viable life-patterns. But sooner or later they will cease to practice these virtues unless they recover intellectual conviction of their worth. When commitment is detached from sound thinking, it is doomed to an early demise. Surface tides of pietistic enthusiasm may wash over tangential church-related groups from time to time, but tides always ebb as well as flow. The Kingdom of God is effectively served by men who know the truth, men who have the mind of Christ.

The second threat to the Church implicit in the social situation is the new secular consciousness of late twentieth-century man. His recently won mastery over the atom and his triumphs over earth’s gravitational forces have generated enormous self-confidence. Man has come of age in the world. He can manage his own affairs without recourse to a divine power waiting behind the scenes to rescue him when things get out of control. The controls of the forces of nature are now in human hands.

Secular as the descriptive adjective of the modern spirit refers not only to the ascendancy of the physical sciences but also to a distinctively this-worldly attitude that permeates our culture and time. There is no transcendent realm determining the course and destiny of this contingent earth. All we can know is circumferenced by space and time and is discoverable only at the price of strenuous efforts of mind and will. Whatever meanings come to light in the process are meanings that inhere in our temporal and historical existence only. Any ultimate order of reality and truth beyond our finite environment is outside the reach of our limited powers and can only be the subject of inconclusive speculation.

This is the profile of the world in which the Church lives today. To this kind of auditor, informed by presuppositions about the world significantly different from those cherished by his predecessors, the Christian message of redemption is preached. This demanding and challenging situation underscores the notices Peter Berger thinks should be posted far and wide: “Wanted: A Christian Intelligentsia!” (Theology Today, July, 1962, p. 190). To be out-educated and out-thought by the advocates of a secular faith is no cause for rejoicing by those who claim to represent the Incarnate Truth.

Professor Jaroslav Pelikan reminds us that the Christian tradition once included the attitude that “being an intellectual meant being a Christian.” He distinguishes three principal features of the intellectual tradition of the Christian Church: “a passion for being, a reverence for language, and an enthusiasm for history” (“The Christian as an Intellectual,” The Christian Scholar, Spring, 1962). “Being” includes the whole created universe. Implicit in Christian consciousness is an appreciation for nature, a profound respect for all the orders of creation. Reverence for life is generic to the Christian mind. From this reverence is born the scientific spirit that ceaselessly probes the mysteries of being in all its manifold expressions.

Language as the vehicle of thought and the conservator of truth has always been regarded as a priceless treasure by the molders of Christian tradition. Those who believe that faith is evoked by hearing know that there is nothing “mere” about words.

History is the comprehensive story of the life of the human race from its traceable beginnings to the present, critically interpreted by informed investigators. Every man has an incalculably great stake in history, for he owes the very shape of his existence to the accumulated knowledge of the past. Christian concern for historical data has special significance since God chose to make himself and his will known through a long succession of temporal events.

I have argued that the enterprise of learning is both a human and a Christian imperative. Since we are men, i.e., rational beings, we are impelled to inquire into the nature of our existence, the lessons of our past, and the enigmas of the present time. Since we are Christian men, we are under mandate to acquire such competence and skill in handling the Word of Truth as to merit the approval of its ultimate Author. Only the learned man can be a whole man, a cultivated man, a mature man, and thus in the finest sense, a Christian man.

Fred P. Thompson, Jr., is president of Emmanuel School of Religion, a graduate seminary of the conservative Christian Churches, in Milligan College, Tennessee. He received the M.A. degree from George Pepperdine College and the B.D. degree from Christian Theological Seminary.

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